


Two Body Problem

by JeannetteRankin



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Anal Sex, Artist Steve Rogers, Dirty Talk, Frottage, M/M, Nerd Bucky Barnes, Oral Sex, Pining, Power Imbalance, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Seduction, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-19 19:29:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 16,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3621546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeannetteRankin/pseuds/JeannetteRankin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is a fine arts student who's taking physics to fulfill requirements. Too bad he's terrible at it. Bucky is his TA who's determined to help him pass. Too bad he has a massive crush on his student.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a bit blocked on a different thing I'm trying to write, so I decided to just write something fun and this fell out of my brain. So here, have the most cliché romcom steve/bucky au I could think of. :)

Bucky looked up at a knock on his door. The door was propped open, as it always was when he or his fellow T.A. Natasha, were in the office. The office was the size of a coat closet, and in order to have room for two desks, two office chairs, and two people, the door had to be propped open, or there wouldn't be room for it to swing inwards without one or the other of them having to get up and move.

“Steve,” he said, seeing the student standing there. His mood brightened as he lifted himself out of his hunched posture where he'd been leaning over marking papers for an hour. “Ow,” he said as his back muscles protested, hand going to his lower back.

“You okay?” Steve's strong eyebrows knitted together in concern, though there was a hint of a smile playing around his mouth.

“Ugh, my back,” Bucky complained. “I'm getting old. Don't take being nineteen for granted.”

“Yeah, you're very old and repulsive,” Steve agreed solemnly.

“Shut up. Wait until you're a grad student surrounded by teenagers.” Bucky might only have been twenty-four, but seeing the incoming freshmen this year had made him feel _ancient_.

Steve sighed at that and held out the stapled pages he'd been clutching toward Bucky. “I'll never be a grad student at all if I don't get better at these problem sets.”

Bucky sighed, too, as he took the pages. He remembered them, having marked them only the day before. Steve was a bright student, even brilliant, in his major. But there was no denying it: the kid sucked at physics. “Come on in, sit down.” Bucky gestured grandly to the wobbly office chair approximately eight inches from his. “Good thing you don't have long legs, or there's no way the two of us would fit in here,” he remarked. He'd made the joke before, every time since Steve's diminutive frame had first sat in his office back in September. But it always made Steve roll his eyes and seemed to lighten the mood. There was always a storm cloud following this guy around—or maybe that only happened when he was in proximity to Physics 101 and it's teaching assistants.

“I really tried,” Steve told him earnestly, nodding at the paper.

“I know you did,” Bucky told him. He peered at Steve's downcast expression. “Hey, man, I know that. Listen, in my sections I got about twenty slackers who are going to fail for sure. Do you know what I tell _them_ when they come to see me?”

“What?” Steve muttered.

“Nothing,” Bucky said in a decisive tone. “Because they never come see me. They don't care, and they don't try. _You_ came to see me almost as soon as the semester started, because you knew you'd need extra help, and you've come every week since.”

“Except when I had pneumonia.” Steve's serious tone didn't vary, but he looked a little less despondent.

“Yeah, well, I'm willing to blame that one on the germs, not on you.”

Steve smiled at him a little. Bucky noticed, not for the first time, how his own stomach clenched when he saw Steve smile. It wasn't anything he could control. Natasha would laugh herself sick at him if she ever figured out he had a crush on a sophomore. He never wanted her to find out. Not because he was afraid she'd get him in trouble, he'd never survive her teasing. Anyway, it wasn't like he'd done anything wrong. Nor would he, ever. It was just...well, he couldn't help himself over this ridiculous kid, who peered at the world with such clear artist's eyes, but could barely handle basic pre-algebra level calculations. Yet, despite being a fine arts major, he'd signed up for Physics to fulfill his science requirement, not geology or astronomy as most humanities students did. When Bucky'd asked him once why he'd done so instead of one of the notoriously easier courses, Steve had simply replied that he liked challenges. Bucky admired that, even as he thought it was a little crazy.

“Anyway,” Bucky said, turning his attention away from Steve's unfairly pretty smile and the tiny crinkle around his steady blue eyes, and focusing on the problem set. “You've definitely improved, that's for sure. You're getting the concepts better and better. It's really just the math that's the problem.”

He pointed to one problem and showed it to Steve. “See, here? You remembered the formula and plugged in the right numbers. It's just that then before you could get to the answer, you inverted two of the terms and changed that eight to a six by accident.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, rubbing the bridge of his nose and looking away. “I do that a lot, I know.”

“Y'know,” Bucky said, frowning as he thought about it. “A _lot_ of the trouble you've been having has been with stuff like that. Transposing digits, dropping signs, switching variables. Steve, please don't take this the wrong way, but have you ever considered that you might have a learning disability related to math?”

“Oh, you mean dyscalculia? Yeah, I've got that.”

Bucky's jaw dropped. He stared at Steve for a moment, but the kid seemed totally serious. “You do?” Bucky exclaimed. “Like, you know for sure?”

“Uh, yeah,” Steve looked kind of embarrassed and twitchy. “Back in like, tenth grade, I think? My teacher had them send me to a testing place, and they sent a letter saying I have a 'mild case of dyscalculia.'”

“Why didn't you tell me that from the beginning? You should have been getting extra time on tests, special tutoring..” Bucky trailed off as he saw Steve's chin rise stubbornly.

“I got through Calc I, and I can get through this, too. You said yourself how much better I'm getting at this stuff.” Steve looked at him challengingly and squared his thin shoulders.

For a moment, Bucky considered letting it go. Steve knew himself and his own abilities best, after all. Then some instinct took over. “Nope. No, absolutely not. This is ridiculous.”

Steve blinked at him. “What?”

Bucky abruptly stood, almost knocking Steve out of his chair in the tiny confines of the office. He hastily grabbed his messenger bag and started stuffing things in it.

“What are you doing?” Steve's voice was more uncertain than Bucky had ever heard it before, even when they'd spent an hour going over vectors together. “I mean, if you don't want to help me anymore, I get it, that's fine.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just another day in my happy mental universe of romcom college au where everything is adorable and nothing hurts~*~*~

“Get up,” Bucky said, nudging the chair Steve was sitting on. “You're coming with me.”

Bucky didn't pause or offer any explanation, but immediately marched out of his office, Steve in tow, and led him out of the building.

“Where are we going?” Steve asked as they cut across campus toward the administration building. 

Bucky didn't answer, just beckoned Steve to come along.

Finally, when they were standing in front of the glass-fronted office with its name printed in white hanging on a sign, Steve cottoned on. “No way,” he said, stopping abruptly in the hall. His jaw was jutting out, face mulish. Normally, Bucky respected the kid's stubbornness. It was the quality that had led him to having a C minus average in Physics despite everything. But this time, Bucky wasn't gonna let the little jerk get away with it.

He grabbed Steve's wrist and tugged him inside the office. As soon as they got up to the counter, he dropped it, determined that if Steve walked away now, he would let him. Bucky didn't wait for him to make a decision, however, just immediately leaned on the counter and smiled at the woman seated behind it.

“Hey there Gladys!” Bucky exclaimed as the woman looked up to greet them. Bucky'd been around for long enough now that he knew at least the receptionist in all the major administration departments.

“Well, Bucky Barnes, welcome to the Student Accessibility Office. What can I do for you today?” Gladys was a seventy year old woman who'd taken a shine to Bucky after the last two semesters where he'd taken over coordinating his department's communications with the SAO. They'd commiserated over the lack of inter-departmental communication and uncaring professors.

“Gladys, this is Steve Rogers,” Bucky gestured to Steve, who was hanging back a little behind him. He was mildly surprised Steve hadn't stormed out, but he wasn't gonna question it. “He's a student in one of my sections, and it seems like there's been some miscommunication. His eval was never sent to you guys, so he's never got his advisory.”

Gladys shook her head and frowned a little. “I'm afraid that happens all too often. Is this your first year?” she asked Steve kindly.

“No, ma'am,” Steve said, with the weariness of someone who probably got mistaken for a fourteen-year-old a lot of the time. “Sophomore.”

“Well!” she exclaimed. “That's just ridiculous. We'll get this sorted out right away.”

Gladys was frighteningly competent when she wanted to be, and she knew every trick in the book. Steve reluctantly coughed up the name of his high school. A series of bureaucratically absurd phone calls later, Gladys was hanging up with satisfaction. Steve spent most of the time staring at his toes and shifting uncomfortably. Bucky just listened and tried to learn all he could from the master. He wished he could cut through red tape with that much skill.

“Wow, Gladys! I think that poor guy at the testing center is probably in tears by now,” Bucky said, admiringly.

“I try,” she told him, waving her hand airily. The sound of the fax machine beeping drew her attention. “Ah! That'll be them coming in now.” She took the pages from the machine and stapled them to a form. “Now, I'll put these on the top of Sonia's pile, and you should have an official advisory by tomorrow afternoon. I'll make sure to send you the results, Bucky, dear. Here, sign this,” she shoved the form in front of Steve, who signed it, scowling. “All done,” she declared.

“You're a marvel,” he told her, and leaned over to give her a peck on the cheek. She smiled benevolently at them and shooed them out of the office.

Outside, Steve stood, still looking at the floor. “They'll email you with the results,” Bucky told him. “And send it to your professors so they can accommodate you.”

“You happy now?” Steve snapped at him, finally meeting Bucky's eyes. Bucky leaned back in surprise.

“Yeah, yeah, I am,” he said in reply, keeping his voice even. “You have a right to a level playing field and that's what you'll get. It's not fair that everyone else should have a better chance than you.”

Steve muttered something under his breath that Bucky couldn't quite hear, then stomped away, his glare making it clear Bucky was NOT invited to follow.

Bucky just stood there for a little bit, with the uneasy feeling that maybe he hadn't done such a great thing after all.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky is a serious person, you guys. Very mature. Much adult. (Don't worry, things get better in the next chapter, promise.)

Steve didn't show up at Bucky's office hours for their usual time the next week. He came to section, but sat all the way in the back, didn't talk, and rushed out at soon as class was over. It hurt Bucky's feelings more than he'd have thought possible. After Thursday, where Steve gave him the silent treatment in lab and then failed to show up all afternoon during their usual time, Bucky was definitely sulking. He was also starting to worry.

“I mean, exam three is on Tuesday,” he complained to Natasha. “And if he doesn't get a decent grade on it, it's gonna be almost impossible for him to pull his grade up before the end of the semester.”

“Well, you hurt his pride, James,” Nat told him. He'd told her about what had happened with Steve and the Student Accessibility Office. She'd grimaced and shaken her head and called him something in Russian that he was pretty sure was a bad name. “Give him some time to come around.”

But Bucky couldn't put it out of his mind. The part of the story that he hadn't told Nat, hadn't told _anyone_ , was how much more he was concerned about Steve than about any of his other students, and the reason. He'd been able to be in denial before last week, but now that he hadn't seen Steve, he couldn't stop thinking about him, worrying about him, and wanting to apologize. Hell, he just plain missed the kid. Also, he'd jerked off thinking about Steve that morning in the shower, but that part was definitely staying between him and his guilty conscience.

The advisory had come through, and Bucky had made sure the professor saw it and put Steve's extra time in for the upcoming exam. Bucky had worries of his own and tried to focus on his work as much as he could. Fretting over Steve wouldn't help the situation any.

Despite his best intentions, he couldn't help himself. Tuesday passed and the entire 101 class took their exam. Bucky came across Steve's in the pile he got for grading. His heart jolted as he saw the neat handwriting of Steve's name across the top. He set that one aside to grade last.

As he was marking papers, Steve's test, sitting on one side of his desk, kept drawing his eyes. He couldn't get anything done with it sitting there, mocking him. Finally, in exasperation with himself, he got up from his kitchen table where he'd been grading and got himself a beer.

Grimly cracking the beer open, he set the rest of the stack aside, and put Steve's test right down next to the answer key. Red pen in one hand, he started going over the answers Steve had printed. Bucky'd been a grader and a TA long enough now that it only took him a few minutes to go through a test. In this case, though, it was a quarter of an hour before he was done. Partly because the mental image of Steve leaned over this test paper, brow furrowing in concentration, kept distracting him, and partly because he wanted to double check himself and make sure he was being scrupulously fair in his marks. He knew he was hardly objective about Steve, so that made it all the more important that he be careful.

Finally, he finished marking and he tallied up the points. The total went at the top of the paper and he circled the number in his red pen. Without letting himself take the time to question the impulse, because he'd only talk himself out of it, Bucky went over to his computer and composed an email.

_Hello Steve,_

_I've graded your Physics exam and would like to discuss it with you. Please come to my office hours tomorrow between 3 and 4 if convenient. If not, let me know another time soon that works for you._

_Sincerely,_

_James Barnes_

It was a far cry from the casual emails that he and Steve had taken to exchanging when Steve had a question, or to set up a time to meet. Not that they were email buddies or anything, exactly, but normally Bucky wouldn't be so formal with anyone unless it was like, a college dean or something.

Feeling the tension drop out of his shoulders after he clicked Send, Bucky was able to return to work and get through the rest of his grading without thinking about Steve. Much.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would this be a good time to confess that I've never actually taken a physics class? I did, however, manage to pull an introductory physics syllabus off the internet. ~*research skills*~

His email to Steve hadn't gotten a response, and the whole next day, the thought kept popping in Bucky's head that he'd probably mortally offended Steve, and that the stiff email had made everything worse. Obviously, the kid was never going to come back to see him, and Bucky would have to ask Natasha to take over tutoring Steve. Like he needed to owe Nat any more favors.

When his three o'clock office hours rolled around, Bucky couldn't settle down to focus on anything. Not that many students would show up the day _after_ a test, and normally he'd be able to use this time to get some of his own work done—he had a project report due in a few days that he'd barely started—but his concentration was shot.

After thirty minutes of cooling his heels with no students to help and having gotten no work done, he was reduced to balancing his chair as far back as the tiny office would allow, seeing if he could stretch far enough to get his legs up on the desk.

He had just managed it, after putting Nat's chair up on top of her desk to get it out of the way, and was balancing his heels on the furthest edge of his desk, when a knock on the door frame startled him. It was Steve, looking at him with a thoroughly bemused expression on his face.

Trying to whip his feet down into a less unprofessional pose, Bucky managed to swing his right foot into the edge of the trash can, right on his achilles tendon.

“Motherfucker!” Bucky yelled, grabbing his foot. “Ow,” he followed up in a quieter voice, but with feeling. “Ow, ow ow, and also _ow_.”

“You okay?” Steve exclaimed, concerned. “You want me to get you some ice or something?”

After a second, Bucky was able to respond in a pinched voice, “nope, thanks. I'm good.” He let out a long hiss between his teeth and let go of his foot, shaking out his ankle.

Steve was still standing there, clutching his backpack and shifting awkwardly. _Wow_ , Bucky told himself, _way to look like you've got your shit together, Barnes._

“So,” Bucky said in what was hopefully a normal voice. “Thanks for coming by. I've got your test. Come, sit.” He took down the other chair with a clatter.

“No, thanks,” Steve replied. “I can't stay long.”

Bucky paused, both hands on the back of the roller chair, holding it between them like a shield. Normally he'd kick his own ass for being worried about a nineteen-year-old undergrad's opinion of him (much less one that could barely handle basic kinematics). But damn it, he couldn't help but care.

“Right,” he muttered. Opening his folder, he rifled through for Steve's test. He'd initially put it on top of the stack last night, but then in a pathetic attempt to be less transparent, stuck it in the middle of the pile. Now it took him a few seconds to find it. “Here,” he said, holding it up. “So far in the semester, exams have been your weak point. Your homework has been in the B range recently, but your first two exam grades were pulling you down.” He flipped the exam over so that Steve could see the large “84” printed in red and circled. Bucky smiled at him. “Congratulations.”

“I got a B?” Steve asked, looking stunned, as he reached out and took the exam. His eyes were wide.

“Yup,” Bucky told him gleefully. His nervousness was momentarily forgotten in his pride at Steve's achievement. Some of his students would break down in tears of anguish at getting an 84, but in Steve's case, Bucky felt like he should get a commendation from the university president and possibly a banquet held in his honor. “And don't think I went easy on ya, either. We'll definitely be going over those missed answers.” Bucky paused, and scratched the back of his head. “That is, if you still want to. Nat or someone else can help you if you want.”

“No,” Steve blurted out, looking up from where he'd still been starting dazedly at the score. “I want you to.”

“Oh, okay,” Bucky said, and he was sure he had a dopey grin on his face, but he couldn't bring himself to care. “Um, I got the feeling you were kinda mad at me about, you know, the other day.”

“Yeah,” Steve shrugged and grimaced, not meeting Bucky's eyes. “I was, actually. But I was wrong.”

“Huh,” was all Bucky said. He tried to remember the last time one of his students admitted they were wrong like that.

“I was talking to my mom,” Steve went on. “And I told her what happened and I was, y'know--”

“Bitching?” Bucky teased.

“Complaining,” Steve said emphatically. “And, well, she told me I should have taken care of the SAO thing myself, and that I needed to pull my head out of my ass and stop sulking.”

“Your _mom_ said that?”

“Oh yeah. And she made me promise I'd apologize to you. So, I'm sorry,” Steve told him with a rueful look.

“Accepted,” he said easily. “And for what it's worth, I'm sorry too. Not about what I did, but the way I did it was pretty high-handed.” If Steve could be gracious, so could he.

“Apology accepted.” Steve's eyes were still smiling at him, and Bucky, relief and happiness welling up in his chest, lost track of the conversation for a moment. He had no idea what Steve saw in his face, but the expression on Steve's suddenly changed, become less amused and more..hungry?

Before Bucky could remember anything about professional conduct, or change the subject, or step away—not that there would be anywhere to go in the closet-office—Steve moved.

Suddenly there was a hand at the back of Bucky's neck and his head was being pulled downward. Steve was up on tiptoes and Bucky was being kissed.

It was an awkward mashing of lips. Bucky'd been kissed a fair amount in his life, he didn't mind owning up, and he'd definitely had more skillful kisses. If anything, it reminded him of his first awkward make out sessions with a girl from school in the back of his dad's car. But despite that, he couldn't remember the last time a simple kiss had whited out his brain and made his heart pound in his ears.

Steve pulled back and let go of him. Bucky made an inarticulate noise of protest, though whether he was protesting the kiss or the kiss ending, he wasn't really sure. "Buh," was all that made it out of his mouth.

Steve looked up at him and bit his lip. He looked like he was holding himself back from doing something.

"Steve." Bucky managed a whole word. "You-"

"Igottago," Steve blurted, interrupting him. He grabbed his stuff and bolted out the door.

As soon as he was out of sight, a modicum of brain function returned to Bucky and he realized that he had just kissed a student. In his office. With the door open where anyone walking by could see them.

“Fuck.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally supposed to be five chapters total lol

Bucky straightened his shirt and squared his shoulders before walking into the dorm lobby. It wasn't like he had done anything _wrong_ , he told himself. There was no need to be nervous.

The work-study guy manning the little desk inside the entrance eyed him as he came in. “Can I help you?” he asked with little interest.

“Hi there, I'm here to drop something off.” Bucky flashed his ID card at the guy. “It's for one of my students.”

“Cool, you can leave it here. I'll put it in his box.” The guy immediately went back to his phone.

“Mmm,” Bucky made an ambivalent sound, going for a casual air. “I don't think I'd better leave it. He really needs this stuff if he wants to pull his grade up.”

“You do house calls?” the student asked, skeptically. “My T.A.'s barely show up for office hours.”

“Well, I kinda feel sorry for the kid,” Bucky said, grimacing. “You know the type, artist, head in the clouds, but still trying to get through his sci credits.” He forced a laugh, hoping the guy wasn't a humanities type himself.

“Yeah, alright man, go on up.” The guy jerked his thumb and dropped his eyes back to his phone screen once more.

Well, that had been easier than Bucky thought. He made for the stairs before the guy could change his mind, but he was almost a little disappointed that he hadn't had a chance to use any of the elaborately rehearsed lies he'd had lined up.

Walking through the third floor hallway reminded him of his own undergrad days. The bad carpet with inexplicable stains, the whiteboards on each door covered with dry erase arguments, the terrible art and band posters in evidence everywhere.

Room 303 had a neat door, decorated with nothing worse than an Air Force ROTC sticker, and a few caricature sketches that he assumed were Steve's. The square in the center said _Steven Rogers_ and right below that, _Samuel Wilson_.

The door swung open only a few seconds after his knock. “Steve,” he greeted, awkwardly. Thank god it hadn't been his roommate. Steve's hair was tousled and he was wearing an old faded t-shirt and jeans. He looked unfairly good. Bucky had to stop himself from staring at his lips, now that he knew what they tasted like. That was _not_ what he was here for, he told himself sternly.

“Hi,” Steve said, shoulders shrugging up in embarrassment.

“Uh, can I come in?” Bucky asked, voice cracking a little. He cleared his throat. “If you don't mind.”

Steve stepped aside and gestured him in. It was a standard two-bed dorm room, although not nearly as messy as Bucky remembered his own being. Steve's half was obvious by the postcards, sketches, and art museum posters all over one wall.

“You forgot this,” Bucky said, fishing in his bag and pulling out Steve's exam.

“Thanks,” Steve replied, taking it. The familiar wry tone that tugged at Bucky's heart came back into his voice as he said, “I still can't believe this is really my grade.”

“You earned it,” Bucky told him, seriously. He winced, remembering he'd told the desk dude that Steve had his head in the clouds. “I'm proud of you.”

Steve looked up at that, meeting Bucky's eyes and looking a little stunned. “You..are?”

“Yeah,” Bucky told him. “I really am.” He would have been anyway, even if he didn't badly want to see Steve naked. It wasn't every day that you met a student who tried as hard and put in as much effort as Steve did. He wondered if he could find a way to tell Steve how special he was, without making it sound like he was hitting on him.

“I'm sorry,” Steve blurted out all at once.

“What?” Bucky said, derailed.

Awkward Steve was back in full force. “That is, I should apologize, about earlier. For the, um, the kissing thing,” he mumbled.

“Oh, yeah,” Bucky said. He cursed himself. He should have been the one to bring it up; he was supposed to be the authority figure here. “We need to talk about that.”

“I know,” Steve nodded seriously. “I shouldn't have done that. I didn't ask you or anything, I just grabbed you and went for it. It was wrong, I'm sorry. I hope it didn't make you too uncomfortable.”

“Whoa, whoa.” Bucky held out his hands. “Slow down. You make it sound like you attacked me or something.” Steve grimaced and looked away. “Steve, no,” Bucky told him gently. “It wasn't like that, you don't have to apologize.”

He could see the stubborn set of Steve's mouth, and he could tell the kid was probably beating himself up over it. He couldn't leave it like that, that would be terrible. “You know why you kissed me?” Bucky asked him.

Steve gave a tiny sardonic laugh. “Oh, I know why.”

“No, I mean, at that particular moment.” Bucky could see he'd caught Steve's attention. “It's 'cause you picked up on a signal.”

“A signal.”

Bucky took a deep breath. In for a penny, he told himself. “You kissed me because you could tell I was thinking about kissing you.”


	6. Chapter 6

“You were thinking about kissing me?” Steve asked, incredulously. “You wanted to kiss me?”

Bucky huffed a laugh at himself. “You have no idea. So that's what happened. You subconsciously picked up on that, and that's why you kissed me right then. Okay? So don't feel guilty about it. I'm the one who should be feeling guilty.”

“You're not lying, are you?” Steve looked uncertain, and Bucky had an intuitive flash about Steve. In high school he would have been the short, skinny, weird art kid. How many people had lied to him? How many practical jokes had he been the butt of?

“No,” Bucky said, his voice rough. “I'm not lying. You've been in my office, sitting right there in front of me every week. And you're _beautiful,_ and talented, and funny, and I like you. And yeah, I wanted to kiss you. I'm only human, okay? That's why this needs to stop bef--”

He was cut off in mid-word and Steve was suddenly kissing him again. This time Bucky, after the initial second of surprise, took the lead. He placed one hand on the side of Steve's face and guided him, gentling it from an aggressive press of lips into a tender give and take. Steve shuddered and put his hands around Bucky's waist, drawing himself closer.

There had been many excellent reasons why Bucky had absolutely not been going to let this happen again. When Steve, tentatively, and oh so gently, bit down on Bucky's lower lip, he really couldn't recall a single one. Bucky retaliated, using his own teeth to scrape lightly against Steve's lip, then laving the spot with his tongue. He heard Steve gasp into the kiss.

After a time that was far too short for all the things he wanted to do to Steve's mouth, but far too long to kiss someone given what he knew he had to say next, Bucky pulled back and broke the kiss.

“I, I didn't come here for that,” he managed, breathlessly, steadfastly ignoring his half-hard dick that was clamoring for him to continue.

“Oh,” Steve replied, unrepentant. He didn't move his hands from Bucky's waist. Bucky didn't want him to.

“You know, you gotta know this can't happen.” Contradicting his own words, he leaned down and rested his forehead against Steve's, closing his eyes and enjoying the closeness. “I don't have to tell you all the reasons this is a terrible idea.”

“Stupid reasons,” Steve said absentmindedly, as one of his hands snuck beneath Bucky's shirt and started stroking his side.

“I'm older than you,” Bucky reminded him. Even to him, the objection sounded pretty weak.

“Yeah, five whole years. Wow.”

“The rules--”

“I don't care,” Steve interrupted him. Bucky pulled back just enough to see the stern look on his face. “This isn't wrong, and no one can make me say that it is.”

Bucky paused a beat. “You're kind of an intense guy, Steve Rogers,” he told him, but he couldn't help smiling.

Steve smiled back, a little. He shrugged. “I like you, and you like me, apparently. We should be together if we want to be. We're not hurting anyone.”

“That rule is designed to protect students from being taken advantage of.”

“You'd never do that,” Steve told him, as if it was as simple as that. Maybe to him, it was. Bucky was not a bad person, therefore the rule shouldn't apply to him; he didn't need it. Bucky briefly considered the comforting moral security of the world Steve seemed to live in.

He sighed. Too bad his department head and the disciplinary committee didn't live in that world. “I know that,” he told Steve, rather than try and dispute his logic. “And you know that. But _they_ don't. If my boss found out I slept with a student, I'd lose my TAship, probably my whole funding package. That's if they didn't just kick me out of the program completely.”

Steve frowned, but nodded a little. Bucky still couldn't bring himself to pull away any further from where they were standing together.

“So what do you want to do?” Steve asked him.

Bucky considered. “No more kissing. And no more being alone in rooms with beds."

Steve looked at his bed, then back at Bucky. It looked like he was picturing Bucky in his bed and liking the idea. For a second, Bucky thought he was about to get tackled down onto it with Steve on top of him. To his--totally irrational--disappointment, instead, Steve reluctantly nodded. “Ok, yeah.”

“We can still work together on your homework and stuff.”

“Alright,” was all Steve said. Honestly, Bucky had been expecting more of an argument.

“You're okay with that?”

“No kissing, and no being alone together in a room with a bed,” Steve recited. There was a gleam in his eyes that told Bucky he was in trouble. “Those are your rules, and I'll follow them to the letter.” 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Bucky, you beautiful walking disaster, you.

It turned out that Steve could be very good at following rules. But he was even better at circumventing them. The next few weeks were a series of torments. Bucky could honestly never remember being so sexually frustrated in his life.

The next time Steve showed up in Bucky's office, to go over his missed, exam questions, he brought an iced coffee with him.

“Little cold out for that, isn't it?,” Bucky remarked casually as he made room for Steve to sit with him. The days were getting chillier all the time; it would be November soon.

“Felt like trying something new,” was all Steve said. But then, as Bucky began guiding him through the concepts he missed on the exam, Steve started sucking on the straw in his drink.

“Uh..” Bucky lost track of his sentence in the middle of talking about momentum. Steve held his eyes steadily as he hollowed his cheeks and lewdly sucked at the little piece of plastic. Lips like his should be illegal, Bucky thought fervently.

After a long moment, Steve pulled off with a little pop. “Problem?” he asked, lips red and eyes full of mischief.

“Nope,” Bucky said in a high pitched voice. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on the paper in front of him for the next ten minutes while they worked together. By the end, Steve had lain off the seduction routine and was focusing on the work, thank goodness. Bucky wanted to explain that the straw thing was the oldest trick in the book, but considering how well it worked on him, what could he really say?

Steve also started dressing differently. Bucky didn't notice right away, because he'd seen Steve in all kinds of clothes. By nature, Steve seemed to be a fairly smart dresser, but he often came to section, or to Bucky's office hours, from studio time, so he'd seen him in old shirts, and covered in paint or charcoal smudges often enough. Now, though, he seemed to have acquired at least two new pairs of very tight jeans, which Bucky couldn't help but notice, since every time Steve wore them, he found at least one opportunity to bend over and pick something up. It was at the same time the most adorably obvious thing Bucky'd ever seen, and devastatingly effective. It's not like Bucky hadn't been aware that Steve had a great little ass, but it was quite another thing to have it shoved in his face. So to speak.

A few days later, Steve walked into lab and Bucky swore he was wearing eyeliner. Steve's bright blue eyes were startling any day of the week, but when they were subtly surrounded by an artful dark grey smudge... Bucky dropped the stack of papers he'd been holding when he saw him. One of the other students solicitously asked if he was okay, and Bucky honestly wasn't sure what answer he gave.

That afternoon, Bucky got a chance to examine the eyeliner situation up close when Steve came by his office. Steve sat next to him, plopping his lab notebook down on the desk. He then pulled his chair up all the way, squeezing in hip to hip with Bucky. The office chair was one wheel out the door, but Steve was skinny enough that they fit, barely.

There was another student waiting in the hall to talk to Bucky, so he could only mutter under his breath, “you're doing this on purpose.”

“Doing what?” Steve asked in a normal, perfectly audible tone, his dark-lined eyes wide and guileless.

Yeah right.

“Okay,” Bucky said with forced cheerfulness. “Let's talk about your measurements.” The lab report was actually pretty well done, but Steve needed another refresher on significant figures. For a few minutes as Bucky was talking and Steve nodding seriously along, he figured he'd gotten the worst Steve was going to throw at him that day and he was feeling pretty confident in his ability to handle it. So Steve a was sitting close enough that Bucky could make out each and every one of his ridiculously long eyelashes. And so the dark eyeliner made him look like a personification of temptation from some old Sunday school book. Bucky was a professional. He could handle it.

It was right around that point of self-congratulation that Steve put his hand on Bucky's thigh. Bucky looked up from the notes in shock as soon as he felt it. Steve just met his eyes and began slowly moving his hand upward and inward toward Bucky's groin.

“Go on,” Steve said. “I think I'm beginning to get it.” He nodded at the papers in front of them.

The other student was still standing right outside. Of course she couldn't see them, leaning on the outside of the wall on the other side of where Steve was, but she was close enough that Bucky could faintly make out the music coming from her earbuds. As always, the door was wide open.

“Oooo-kay,” Bucky said in an unnatural voice. “So, as I was saying, that's why your error bars are slightly off.” He wrapped up the explanation as quickly as he could. By the time he got to the end of his point, Steve's hand had traveled all the way up his leg.

Steve nodded and said, “thanks, that's a _big_ help,” just at the same moment he deliberately brushed his little finger against the bulge in Bucky's jeans.

“Great!” Bucky almost shouted, pushing to his feet. The new angle made his erection completely obvious and Steve smirked at him, looking like the cat that got the cream. “So, just work on that before the next exam, and if you have any questions, let me know,” he rambled while Steve gathered up his things.

“Thanks again,” Steve said, heading out the door. “I got a great feel for it now.” And with that parting shot, he left.

Bucky grabbed his shoulder bag, and holding it in front of him, edged out of the office.

“Give me just one minute, Cindy,” he told the waiting girl who looked up at him expectantly. “I just gotta run to the restroom, then I'll be right back and we can get started.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone was wondering where I stand on the "awkward asshole Steve" characterization debate, hopefully the last chapter and this one will settle the issue definitively.

The last straw came barely a week after that, when Steve stopped by unscheduled, at a time when both Bucky and Natasha happened to be in the office together.

“Hey,” Bucky said, smiling at him.

“Hey.” Steve gave him a warm look. “Sorry to drop in on you, I figured you were probably busy, but I missed lecture yesterday because I was sick, and I wanted to ask you a couple things.”

“You were sick?” Bucky peered at him in sudden worry, but he seemed fine, no signs of illness. He was in regular clothes today, no dramatic eye makeup and nothing skin-tight. “You okay now?”

“Yeah, much better, thanks. I just had an asthma attack and needed to rest afterwards.” Steve grimaced. “I'm fine, anyway, I got the lecture notes from online, but I wanted to ask you about the force diagrams.”

“Of course, yeah, no problem. Nat, any chance you could give us the office for a few minutes?” Bucky asked. That wasn't weird, was it? He was pretty sure he'd do that for any of his students.

“In case you can't tell what it looks like,” Natasha told him, typing away at her laptop with her usual efficiency, glasses perched on her nose. “I'm working here, James.”

“Fine, fine,” he muttered, then turned back to Steve. “We'll leave grumposaurus here to her work. Why don't we see if one of the study rooms is free?” A rolled up ball of paper hit him in the back of the head on the way out, but really, from Natasha, that was a sign of affection.

The study rooms in the science building were on the floor above where Bucky worked. They were small, with room only for three or four people, and each held a table and chairs. By custom, they were open to whoever wanted to take one, but you weren't supposed to claim one alone. One other important feature: they were glass-fronted, so that when you were in them, you were completely visible to anyone passing by in the common area.

They happily found an empty one and Bucky thought with relief that at least Steve wouldn't be able to try anything in here. There was a steady enough flow of traffic that nothing they could do would be unobserved, so that meant no hands on body parts, no convenient bending over, and no pornographic displays involving iced beverages.

(Not that Bucky hadn't enjoyed those things. Damn the kid.)

“You really were sick, right? Or did you just make that up as an excuse to come see me?” Bucky asked as they sat together at the wooden table.

Steve looked unhappy. “No, that was real. Had asthma since I was a kid. It's much better than it used to be, but it still hits me sometimes.”

“That sucks,” Bucky said, wishing he could find better words of sympathy.

“I hate it,” Steve admitted. “But even worse is when it makes me miss stuff and fall behind.”

“Well, let's catch you up, then.” Steve had, as promised, printed the lecture slides and gone through them, making notes. Bucky was pleased to see that Steve's confidence had increased drastically since the beginning of the semester. At first, when he hadn't understand a concept, he would get overwhelmed and stop, and then Bucky would have to spend a big chunk of time going over everything with him to unravel the issue and get him going again. Now, Steve still got confused, but he had much better strategies.

“Here's where I didn't follow,” Steve pointed to a page with a labeled diagram of a spring. “But I did like you said, and made a note then kept going and came back to it later.”

Bucky beamed at him. “Good work. Now, here's the bit you missed,” and he patiently launched into a detailed explanation.

By the end of half an hour, Bucky had the satisfaction of seeing light dawning in Steve's eyes as he grasped the concepts in front of them. Bucky felt a twinge of regret at the glass wall putting them on display. If they'd been somewhere more private he could have given into the urge to hug Steve or ruffle his hair as he wanted to. Of course, the hair ruffling might not go over so well. Steve didn't like it if he felt like Bucky was making fun of his height.

“It's been really great having you to work with this semester,” Steve told him, smiling.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You explain things really well, and you never lose patience. You're a great teacher.”

Bucky felt a bloom of warmth in his chest. He'd had students tell him similar things before, but this was even better. “Well,” he said, blushing a little. “Thanks. You're a good student, though. You make it easy.”

“You've got other good qualities, too,” Steve went on. Bucky noticed Steve give a little glance out into the common area. There was a little knot of students sitting around, talking. But these rooms were basically sound proof; they couldn't hear them. “You'd be a great teacher no matter what you looked like, but you're also gorgeous.”

“Steve,” Bucky said in a warning tone.

“There's no bed in here,” Steve pointed out. “And that means it's not breaking your rules for me to tell you that I've been thinking about you. A lot.”

Bucky shook his head helplessly. He should really walk away and put a stop to this.

“I've been wondering what you look like naked.” As soon as those words escaped Steve's mouth, walking away became impossible.

“Oh god,” Bucky said, weakly.

“I've been picturing it,” Steve said, tapping on the side of his head. “Artistic license, you know? To fill in the details I haven't seen yet.”

“Uh.”

“You've got beautiful skin, and you're lean but with some muscles, that much is obvious. I've got a pretty good idea about your dick,” Steve actually blushed at his own words, but went on blithely. “So nudes from the front are no problem. But I'm really interested in the back view. Specifically, your butt.”

How was it possible for someone to be such an incredible dork and so unfairly hot at the same time? "You're making my life very hard right now," Bucky groaned.

"I'm making it hard?" Steve asked with a face of perfect innocence and concern.

Fuck. Bucky just put his head down on the table. At least that way he wouldn't have to see Steve's adorable stupid blushing face while he did the most library version of dirty talk imaginable.

"What I can see through your pants is enough to get the general shape, so I can tell it's a cute butt. I really need more details, though. Are there dimples? Freckles? These are important details. If you'd agree to model nude for me, that would do it. We could even do it somewhere with no bed, if that'd make you more comfortable. Of course, once I had you naked in front of me, I'd probably have trouble concentrating on art."

A moan escaped Bucky's lips as he pictured the scene Steve was describing. He refused to lift his head, though. If anyone saw him through the glass, they could think whatever they wanted.

"There's a lot of things I'd like to do once I've got you there," Steve's relentless campaign continued. Bucky had always found Steve's surprisingly deep voice pleasant, but he'd failed to consider the implications. Hearing Steve's fantasies described in that rich baritone was a form of torture. "I want to get my hands all over you, feel every inch of your skin. I'd get you good and hard, and then I'd put my mouth on you. I've never given a guy a blowjob before, but I really, _really_ want to do it to you."

Bucky _had_ to look up at that, his eyes drawn to Steve's almost magnetically, their gazes locking together. Steve's face was red now from forehead too chin and the blush was creeping down his neck, but he didn't flinch. Instead, he held Bucky's eyes as he said the most devastating thing yet. "And then after that I think I'd like to fuck you."

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the rating to Explicit. Honestly, I'm not sure where the line between mature and explicit is, but this fic will definitely cross that line by the end, fyi

After the study room incident, Bucky'd had his fill of letting Steve humiliate him in public. Before their next usual study time, Bucky emailed Steve to ask if he could come by Bucky's place instead, so they could work there.

Bucky reasoned that if they were at his place, he'd be able to set boundaries and not let Steve embarrass him in a place where he couldn't do anything about it. In his own home, he'd be able to control the situation.

That notion lasted only until he opened the door and saw Steve. The eyeliner was back, as were the jeans that left nothing to the imagination. He'd done something to his hair, too. Bucky couldn't pinpoint what, exactly, but it was hot.

How could he have thought he'd have any control over the situation? Where Steve was concerned he should have learned by now he had no control at all.

"This is your place? It's nice." Steve said as Bucky let him in.

“Thanks,” Bucky said, eyeing Steve's ass as he sauntered in past him into the room. “It's not much, I know, but I was lucky to get anything on campus at all. Even in this sardine can.” He snapped his attention to Steve's face, but not quickly enough.

“How's the view?” Steve asked with that sly tilt of his mouth.

“Just overlooking a parking lot, sadly,” Bucky said, gesturing to the window. With determined politeness, he invited Steve to sit at the kitchen table and offered him a glass of water.

He had to give Steve credit. As soon as their work was in front of them, he focused and kept up with Bucky. A few innuendos made their way into the discussion of equilibrium and elasticity, but on the whole, he behaved until they got all the way through the end of the problem set.

When they finished—much quicker than Bucky expected, Steve really was getting the hang of things—Bucky shuffled the papers together and couldn't help giving Steve his fond grin. “Not bad, Rogers,” he told him.

“Thanks,” Steve said, looking pleased. He sat back and glanced around. “I really do like your place.”

It was just a kitchen, tiny living area, and bedroom with a miniscule bathroom to one side. But, given that he'd be here for at least several years, Bucky had added a few personal touches. There were framed posters on the wall for _The Wave Pictures_ and _Hefner_ , as well as a few art prints. He'd gotten real bookshelves for his collection of engineering and CS reference books as well as some fiction. He'd tried to keep everything light-colored and open to make the most of what natural light he got.

The fact that Steve liked it made a light feeling bubble up inside him in a way he didn't want to examine too closely. He settled for simply saying, “Thanks.”

“That sofa, it's not a fold-out, is it?”

“No,” Bucky's puzzled reply to the question came a second too late before he realized what Steve was up to.

“Perfect.” Steve was up and coming around the table. Bucky pushed his chair back in an instinctive move to draw back. That only made it easier for Steve to put one leg on either side of him and drop directly into Bucky's lap. “And I'm not going to kiss you, either.”

With his lap full of the guy he'd been ogling and sighing over for months, it was probably far too late to pretend that he didn't want this to happen. But still, Bucky was determined to keep his hands to himself.

Steve pressed down into his lap, thighs going around his hips, and Bucky could feel his nascent erection nudging against him at his lower belly. Steve's arms were draped over his shoulders and he leaned in. For an instant, despite what he'd said and what he knew he should do, Bucky's chin lifted in anticipation of a kiss. Instead, Steve's head tilted around and Bucky could feel him nuzzling at his ear.

“Oh shit,” he swore with quite fervor. There was a tiny lick at his earlobe, then Steve's lips brushed against the pulse point on his neck.

“Have you thought about it anymore?” Steve asked. The deep vibrations of his voice, coming from so close, were going straight to Bucky's groin. With Steve's ass pressed right against his cock, there was no way to even pretend it wasn't happening.

“About what?” Bucky asked, sounding breathless.

“What I said last time, about how I'd like to, um, fuck you. I've never done it with a guy before, but I can't stop picturing it with you. You've done it, though, right?”

“Bottomed for a guy?” Bucky's thoughts had scattered. He tried to form a coherent sentence. “No. Well, once. It didn't go so great, that time.” But then, Bucky had been sixteen and his boyfriend at the time had been a jerk. “I never pictured you wanting to do that,” he said, but there wasn't a 'no' in his tone.

Steve's head came back up and Bucky an up-close view of his smirk. “So you had been picturing sex with me, just not that in particular.”

Bucky pressed his lips together and refused to make any reply. He wanted to clutch Steve's face and kiss the smirk right off him, but managed to keep his hands where they were.

“Well, so would you let me? Sometime, not right now..” a certain vulnerability crept into Steve's voice, even though his hips started up a slow back and forth rhythm.

With Steve grinding on his lap the way he was, Bucky would probably have agreed to anything. It was true, he'd imagined lots of things with Steve, but never that particular act. Not until the other day in the study room, when Steve had so bluntly stated his desire for it. When Bucky had made his way home that day, fighting another awkward public boner thanks to Steve, he'd immediately jerked off and he hadn't been able to picture anything else. Steve had those beautiful hands, and he was deft with them in his art. He could just imagine Steve over him, pressing his fingers inside his ass one at a time, taking him apart.

Now, feeling Steve's cock pressing against him, he wanted it. With a sudden intensity, he wanted that _inside him_.

Bucky's hands, of their own volition, grabbed Steve's hips and pulled him tight against him. Steve groaned obscenely, his red lips parting, eyes fluttered shut. _Fuck everything_ , Bucky thought to himself. No one could hold out against that face.

In the instant before his lips met Steve's, a sudden knock on the door made them both freeze.

Steve's eyes snapped open and met his. Bucky became acutely aware of the fact that he was in an extremely compromising position. Everything he'd managed to put out of his mind came flooding back, as the thought of what would happen if they were caught brought him instantly back to earth.

Steve looked equally frozen. They both held still for a few seconds. Maybe if they didn't say anything, whoever it was would go away.

The knocking came again, louder. “James? I know you're home, answer the door,” the voice came from the hall.

“Shit,” Bucky hissed. “It's Natasha!”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Bucky bundled a flustered Steve into the bedroom. “Stay in there,” he whispered urgently.

“Bucky, wait,” Steve said, confusion on his face.

There wasn't time for an argument, not that he'd ever won an argument against Steve anyway. Bucky only muttered “sorry,” and shut the bedroom door on him.

“Come on, James,” Nat's voice came again from the door. “I've had a shit day and we're going out for a drink.”

Bucky took a second to smooth his shirt down, hoping he didn't look too much like he'd recently been mauled by an amorous boy.

He opened the door, and found Natasha standing there, arms crossed. “Finally,” she said. “Come on.” She made as if to go, beckoning him along.

“Nat,” he protested. “It's really not a good time.”

Natasha did not look impressed. “You told me earlier that you'd caught up on all your grading.”

“Well, yeah,” he said, shifting anxiously. He wished she wouldn't look at him with that gaze that suggested she could pierce into his brain and see all his secrets. It was rude.

“And I know you got your project report done,” she went on, mercilessly. “So what could you have to do right this second that can't wait for a friend? A friend whom you owe many favors?” One of her auburn eyebrows raised toward her hairline.

“Natasha,” Bucky groaned. “Come on, that's not fair.”

She gave him the tiny tilt of the corner of her mouth that made all the undergrad boys flee from her in terror. “I don't play fair. Now, grab your shoes and come along. Unless you have..a date? Do you have a date tonight?”

“No,” he hastened to assure her. “No date. Okay, you got me, let's go get a drink.” His shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Wonderful. It's happy hour, and you're buying the first round.”

She stood there watching while he found his boots and laced them up, so he didn't have the slightest chance to say anything to Steve or give him any kind of reassurance. As the door closed behind him, he cast one last look at the closed entrance to the bedroom.

Natasha was usually a fun person to drink with. They'd dated for a split second when he'd first entered the program, and though it hadn't worked out, she was still his closest friend at the school. When they felt like getting wasted, she was hilarious, and when they just went out for drinks like they were doing now, they would get into epic debates about nanotubes, or bitch about departmental politics. Sometimes Bucky would just sit back and watch as she decimated the ego of any man who tried to hit on her. That was always a good time.

But tonight, he couldn't keep his mind on what she was saying. His thoughts kept flying back to that moment in the kitchen when he'd given in, back to the look on Steve's face. His thoughts then flickered to a vision of the humiliation they would face if they were caught. He wasn't the only one who would suffer if that happened. Steve would be made fun of endlessly. At least he couldn't get in any official trouble. Unless...Steve's grades had taken a huge improvement lately. It would be all too easy for the department to accuse Steve of trading sexual favors for better grades. Even if it didn't stick, the accusation would mar Steve's reputation, possibly for the rest of his academic career. The school wasn't that big, and people talked. _Shit_ , Bucky asked himself, as he contemplated Steve being pulled up in front of the disciplinary committee, _what was I thinking?_

“James,” Natasha was actually snapping her fingers at him. She was leaned back against the bar, peering up at him.

“Sorry, sorry.” He scrabbled to find the topic they'd been conversing on when he'd drifted off. “So, Professor Lensherr's gave you a hard time about results, huh?”

She eyed him pityingly, but—thank god for small favors—didn't call him out on it, just kept talking. “That's right. As if it's  _my_ fault that the data didn't support his theory. Now he's making noises like he doesn't even want to publish.”

“Oh man,” Bucky grimaced in sympathy.

Nat went on, and Bucky honestly tried to pay better attention. But he couldn't help but be relieved when enough time finally passed that he could justify making an excuse and leaving.

She sent him on his way with a simple “have a good night, James.” But something in her look made him wonder how much she had guessed about what was really on his mind.

Standing outside the bar, Bucky grabbed his phone to check on Steve, only to realize that he never actually got his number.

“What the hell?” He told himself as he starting making his way back to campus. How had he let this thing with Steve go on the way it had? He wasn't some dumb kid anymore, he knew better. He'd told himself he'd felt helpless, but that had really just been an excuse, hadn't it? The truth was, he'd been being selfish. He'd wanted Steve, and wanted to revel in having his attention, in having Steve pursue him.

By the time Bucky made it to Steve's dorm, he felt about three inches tall.

The girl at the dorm's desk waved him through as soon as he showed his staff ID, and Bucky made his way to Steve's room with leaden feet. He steeled himself to call things off with Steve, for real this time, and not to give in no matter what Steve said or did.

But instead of Steve, the dorm room door opened on a young man Bucky had never seen before. He was tall and rangy with dark skin and an angular, handsome face.

“Hi,” Bucky said, lamely. “Is uh, Steve here?” He tried to peer around the guy to see into the room.

“Who are you?” was the skeptical reply.

“My name's Bucky Barnes. Steve's in my physics section and I really need to talk to him. About, uh...his homework?” 

“Ah hah,” a knowing look came over his face. “He's not here right now. I'm Sam, Steve's roommate.” Sam poked his head out the door and looked both ways down the hallway. “Damn,” he said with a sigh, “you better come inside.”

“I mean, if he's not here...” Bucky began, edging away.

“Oh, you want to have a conversation in the hallway about how you've been getting hot and heavy with a sophomore?” Sam challenged, a surprisingly stern look on his face for a guy who couldn't be over age twenty.

Bucky stopped in his tracks.

“That's what I thought. Get in here.”

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just really like Natasha in glasses. And causing Bucky emotional pain. 
> 
> [EDIT: I made a very minor change after posting this because I realized I'd copied and pasted the wrong version. No plot points were harmed during this correction, I promise.]

Bucky woke up the next morning after the Steve-grinding-on-him, almost-getting-caught, being-chewed-out-by-the-roommate thing and felt awful.

“You're very morose today, James,” Natasha observed from her desk. Of course, she was chipper as ever, having apparently spent the rest of the night after Bucky had left the bar chatting up some man named Clint who could match her drink for drink, was also a brilliant linguistics major, and was suitably intimidated by her.

“It's not my fault I didn't hook up with a hot circus performer last night,” Bucky groused.

“He spent _one_ season with the circus,” she corrected. “It adds to his rugged charm. But really, this isn't like you. You've been sulking over that spreadsheet for nearly an hour.”

Bucky glanced around at her. She looked as she always did, perfectly serene, and she was actually continuing to type while they carried on the conversation. “How do you know? You haven't looked away from your screen the whole time.”

“I can sense these things. So what is it? Did something happen after you left last night?” 

Bucky couldn't answer, though he wished he could tell her, or someone, what had happened. The conversation with Sam had really gone better than he'd had any right to expect. Bucky had slunk into the dorm room after Sam's command expecting to get a reaming. And not the fun kind. In his time, he'd been told off by a few parents, and in one memorable case, an ex of the person he was fooling around with, but never a roommate before. 

Sam had shut the door behind them and rounded on him, crossing his arms and giving him an implacable look.

“Look, I'm not trying to tell Steve how to live. When he told me he was interested in someone, I was happy for him, god knows he deserves to be with someone who appreciates him. I even lent him my eyeliner,” Sam had told him, shaking his head.

Bucky'd run his hands through his hair, trying to gather his scattered thoughts. “Listen, I know you're looking out for your roommate. I want you to know, I came here to tell Steve we had to cool it. It's not right.”

“Damn straight,” Sam had told him straight out. “When I found out it was a teacher he was fooling around with, I let him know what a dumbass he's being. But you're much worse.” Bucky hadn't been able to say anything in his defense. “That's nothing he needs to be getting mixed up in. You don't seem like a bad guy,” Sam had conceded. “But I don't like seeing my friend get messed with.”

“You're right.” Bucky had admitted, messing up his own hair even further. Sam's words, giving voice to what he knew he should have been telling himself all along, had left him feeling hollowed out. “I let it get way too far. It was dumb. Like I said, I was going to call everything off and explain it to him.”

“Alright, man. That's all I wanted to say.” Sam had stepped away from the door then, and uncrossed his arms.

“Is Steve...okay?” Bucky hadn't been able to resist asking, thinking of how he'd left Steve shut up in his bedroom by himself.

“He'll be alright. He wasn't too happy when he left here to cool off, but he'll get on okay.”

That had been a relief. “And you're not going to tell anyone about this whole thing?”

“Nah, man, I got my own shit to worry about. I just don't want him getting in over his head.” Sam had shaken his head wryly as if sharing Bucky's opinion of how hard it would be to keep Steve out of trouble.

“Okay,” Bucky had told him, making his way to the door. He'd met Sam's eyes, and what he'd seen there was something like compassion. Steve had people looking out for him, that could only be a good thing. Bucky'd had to follow through. “Thanks. I won't see him anymore, I promise.”

And that had been that. Really, what reason did he have to be so heartsore? It had just been a stupid crush, they hadn't even really done anything. “It's nothing,” he told Nat, realizing that an unacceptably long time had passed since she'd asked her question.

At that answer, Nat actually stopped typing and looked around at him, peering over the rim of her glasses. “If you say so,” was all she said. And--bless her cold Russian heart--she never brought it up again.

The next time Bucky saw Steve in section, it was back to the version of Steve would was hardly acknowledging his existence. He didn't meet Bucky's eyes, just sat in the back and didn't ask a single question the entire hour. Bucky had been prepared for recriminations and anger, but the total lack of reaction was actually worse.

Steve also stopped showing up for their study sessions, which Bucky really ought to have expected, but still hit him like a blow the first time he sat through the office hour without catching a sight of him. Steve's grades on his homework stayed high, though, so either Steve was getting help somewhere else, or he really didn't need Bucky anymore. Bucky wasn't sure which alternative he wanted to be true. 

The days turned grey and cold with November, the last of the leaves fell from the trees, and Bucky learned just how pathetic he could be.

At one point he stopped by the Accessibility Office on what he had to admit was a paper-thin of excuse. “Gladys,” he greeted, walking in one day when his mind had been latched onto Steve like a dog worrying a bone.

“Why, Bucky, hello there,” Gladys's wrinkled face smiled as she twinkled at him. At least someone was glad to see him.

“Could you help me out with something?” He gave her the best imitation of his usual charm that he could manage.

“For you? Anything.”

He made up some excuse about how, since Steve had only gotten his advisory in the middle of the semester, he wanted to double-check that he'd be on the proctors' list for alternate testing during finals.

“Oh, yes,” Gladys assured him. “He will be, don't you worry about that.” But she double-checked anyway, to humor him.

“So,” Bucky dropped casually into the conversation, twiddling with the candy dish on the counter. “Has Steve been coming to the center for tutoring hours?”

“I don't recall seeing him. Why?” She asked. “Is he having trouble?”

“No, nope, not at all,” Bucky fumbled the candy dish, almost knocking it over. “He's great.”

Bucky hastily fled under Gladys's watchful eye, feeling like he'd reached a new personal low, and trying not to worry too much about who was getting to sit with Steve and go over his problem sets.

One of the few advantages to being a sad sack was that Bucky was making great progress on his own work. He didn't feel up to much human contact, so he had nothing to do but stay in and work. Plus, lingering paranoia made him want to make sure he was crossing his t's and dotting his i's, just in case an accusation did come out.

Before he knew it, it was finals week and Bucky was prepping for the last push to get through the semester. Flipping through the stack of grading he'd picked up, Bucky idly thought that maybe he'd get away for a while, take a vacation over the holidays, go somewhere tropical, meet someone cute, and try to erase the whole autumn from his memory. His eye caught on a paper in the stack, and he realized the final exam in front of him was neatly labelled “Steve Rogers.”

Grading it was easier than he expected. He was still proud of how much progress Steve had made, and even if Bucky had screwed everything up spectacularly, at least he had done some good. 

That afternoon, when Bucky dropped off the stack of finals he'd graded so far with the office, he felt like he was letting Steve go. A lot of students didn't even bother coming to pick up their exams, but he knew Steve would, and he hadn't been able to resist adding a little note to the top of Steve's exam, next to the grade.

He knew that Steve would read those words, and hopefully, even if it didn't make him hate Bucky any less, it would help him feel better about the situation.

Bucky meandered home, lay down, put on the _Mountain Goats_ , and did nothing but feel sorry for himself for an hour.

When he finally dragged himself back to the table to get more grading done, he checked his email and saw the last thing he'd expected.

_Mr. Barnes,_

_I picked up my final exam just now, and would like to discuss my grade with you. Would tomorrow morning at eleven, in your office, be convenient?_

_Sincerely,_

_Steve Rogers_

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I employing literary symmetry, or am I being too lazy to come up with more original plot points? We just don't know.

Bucky had his end-of-semester meeting with his advisor beforehand and arrived late, breathless from running up the stairs, to find Steve waiting outside his office at 11:07.

Steve was leaned up against the wall outside the door, and Bucky's heart clenched as he approached. Steve met his eyes for the first time in a month, and all the reasons Bucky had gotten into the mess in the first place came rushing back to him. He looked good as he gazed up at Bucky with his steady, watchful regard.

“Hi,” Bucky panted, coming up. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“It's okay,” Steve said, his face not giving anything away. His voice was wary and his body language more closed off than Bucky had seen before.

“Come in,” Bucky told him, hastily fumbling to get his keys in the door. He dropped them, and cursed himself, but managed it on the second try.

Bucky stood by his desk and Steve squeezed past him, then shut the door behind them. They were alone, shut up in the tiny room. Steve took a spot by the opposite wall, all of about four feet away, almost close enough to touch.

“I got your note.” Steve held up his test and Bucky's handwriting, right at the top, said:

_Good work this semester—really. You're the most improved student in the course, by far. I respect you and the work you've put into learning the subject. It was my privilege to work with you. All the best. -Bucky_

“Yeah,” Bucky said. He internally squirmed, and resisted the urge to qualify or defend what he'd written. It seemed stupid, now, too stiff and too vulnerable at the same time. “I meant it. And with that score, you know, you'll wind up with an 83 average in the course.”

The news that he'd gone up to a solid B in the course that, at the beginning, Steve had despaired of even passing, didn't seem to affect him. Bucky waited for a reaction. Steve looked down and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. His shoulders hitched inward and he hesitated, then said, “you said you 'respect me.'”

“Yeah. Yes, of course.” Bucky said. Wasn't that obvious? Had he given Steve the impression he _didn't_ respect him?

“Were you ever... actually interested in me? Or was it just the forbidden fruit thing?” Steve's unhappy eyes wouldn't meet his while he asked.

“The what?” The question was so out of the blue he could barely process it.

“Sam said that, well, that I should back off flirting with you, and that it was probably just the thrill of doing something wrong. He told me the game I was playing was mean-spirited, and you probably were just going along with it. And then when you hid me away like a dirty secret from your friend, I figured he was right.”

“Is that what you thought?” Bucky gaped. “Steve, no. I mean, okay,” Bucky knew that he owed Steve complete honesty, “it was hot, and probably the fact that it was against the rules, yeah, some part of me liked that. But that's not--that's only a small part of why I did what I did. Anywhere I could have met you, under any circumstances, I would have been into you. For so many reasons. You're...I think you're incredible.”

“Oh,” Steve said.

"I thought, when you stopped talking to me, stopped coming to see me, even for homework, I thought you hated me."

“I didn't. I don't think I ever could. I was mad at you,” Steve paused and actually smiled at him a little, making Bucky's heart skip a beat. “Again. But this time, I thought you were mad at me, too. For being so pushy and teasing you, and almost getting you into trouble.”

“I wasn't. And I'll try and make the other thing up to you, if you let me.” Something dangerously like hope was thudding inside Bucky's ribs, threatening to make him giddy.

“Well, after the SAO thing, and then shoving me out of sight, maybe you could work on not pushing me around so much,” Steve told him, but there was fondness in his face.

“I will. And after being such an intrusive little flirt, maybe you could work on listening to boundaries a bit.”

“Deal,” Steve promptly told him. He held out a hand. Bucky hesitated. “Shake on it?” Steve asked.

Laughing, Bucky took his hand. It was a good handshake, firm without being too tight. Steve didn't drop his hand, and Bucky didn't let go. He held on, caressing the back of Steve's hand with his thumb. They really were good hands.

“You can say 'no' and we can still be friends, I promise,” Bucky said. He couldn't tell what Steve was thinking, but for the first time, he had a right to ask. “I'm not your teacher anymore. Do you want to give me a chance?”

Steve's brow un-furrowed, his face opened up, and he used their hands to tug Bucky closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Bucky, heart pounding, leaned in.

A sudden terrible thought occurred to Bucky. “Wait!” They paused, inches apart. “You're not taking any more physics next semester are you?"

“God, no.” Steve laughed and brought their mouths together.

It was the first time they'd kissed in a way that wasn't just Steve attacking Bucky's mouth. This was tender and sweet. Bucky tried to put his apology into it, along with everything he felt for Steve. Steve's lips were soft under his and Bucky dizzily realized how quickly he could get used to this.

“That's one rule broken,” Steve said, pulling back. His eyes were bright and happy in a way that Bucky didn't think he'd ever seen before, and Bucky was sure his weren't too different.

“Can I interest you in breaking the other one?” Bucky offered in a low voice suffused with joy.

“I would, but--” Steve started.

“If you don't want to, I understand.” _Boundaries_ , Bucky told himself.

“It's just, I have another final in twenty minutes,” Steve admitted.

Bucky stared. “Holy shit. What are you doing here, then?”

“This was important,” Steve said staunchly.

“Okay, thanks, I think you're swell, too. Now get out of here, you lunatic.” Bucky laughed.

Steve huffed, but gave Bucky's chest a fond pat, then opened the door to go. “Will you be around later?”

“I'll be home all afternoon. Will you come by?”

“There's a bed there, right?” Steve asked ingeniously.

“Yes,” Bucky replied, biting his lower lip to contain a smile.

“Then, yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter, and a short epilogue, will be posted tomorrow. ♥


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this and the epilogue at the same time.
> 
> The length of this chapter kind of got away from me a little.

The time from the moment he answered the door to the time he was being pressed down onto the sofa by Steve's urgent kisses was about ten seconds. Steve's bag went flying somewhere, Bucky barely avoided tripping over his own feet, and then Steve pushed at his shoulders and he found himself plopping down, looking up at Steve.

“How was the final?” Bucky asked, grinning.

“Awful. I couldn't stop thinking about you the whole time. I probably failed,” Steve told him. Bucky was pretty sure he was joking. Mostly.

Bucky leaned back and let Steve crawl into his lap, his hands going to the back of Steve's neck to angle his head inward. With Steve slightly above him, it was the perfect angle for an intense kiss. He pushed his tongue gently inside Steve's mouth, and was rewarded by a low moan.

Steve returned the favor, kissing Bucky with hunger. As Steve leaned in to press as far as he could into Bucky, he put his hands on the back of the sofa. Things were awkward for a minute, then Bucky drew his arms in and put them around Steve's back, grasping handfuls of Steve's shirt and pulling him inward as he leaned forward himself, surging up to bring them together and press against Steve as much as he could. The noise Steve made at that was the most incredible thing Bucky had ever heard.

The kissing went on for long minutes until Bucky, desperate and hard, and wanting so badly, couldn't take it any more. “Bedroom,” he rasped, removing just far enough to get the word out against Steve's mouth.

Steve standing near Bucky's bed with slight uncertainty, obviously hard under his jeans, was one of the hottest things Bucky had ever seen.

“Can I take your shirt off?” His hands were already snaking around Steve's waist under it. He wanted to see all of him.

Steve, impatient, grabbed his own shirt and whipped it off, then, before Bucky could take advantage of all the tantalizing skin revealed, tugged at the hem of Bucky's and pulled his off as well.

“I'm pretty much okay with any item of my clothing you want to remove, for the record,” Steve informed him. Bucky idly wondered if Steve taking charge and ordering him around would ever stop being hot. He doubted it.

Steve pushed at his shoulders until Bucky was sitting on the bed with Steve standing in front of him again, both of them shirtless.

“Roger that, Rogers,” Bucky sniggered.

“My boyfriend is a dork,” Steve lamented.

Bucky paused, fingers in Steve belt loops. The word 'boyfriend' coming from Steve sounded damned good. Everything he could think to want was standing right in front of him. “So you do want to,” he paused and forced himself to re-phrase as a question. “Do you want to be with me, for real?”

“Yes.”

The assent sent a shock through Bucky, lighting up every part of him. “And you'll be mine?”

Steve broke out in a grin that could probably power half the eastern sea board for sheer wattage. “Yeah, I will.”

“All mine,” Bucky said, barely paying attention to the words coming out of his mouth. The fact that this was really happening was starting to sink in.

“That's the idea,” Steve told him.

Bucky put his arms around Steve's hips and rolled him into bed. Steve squawked at him and flailed a bit, but Bucky managed to get him across the bed on his back, and wound up hovering over him.

Steve gave him a half-laughing half-reproachful look, but behind it was such a wellspring of affection and trust that it made Bucky light-headed for an instant. He had Steve Rogers half naked and happy in his bed. Suddenly he could see this happening, really happening. He pictured dozens of weekdays of waking Steve up here and them both rushing out the door to meet the day, giving Steve a hasty goodbye kiss on his way to class. Steve luring him into this bed when he'd stayed up too late into the night working. He saw Sunday mornings of them lying here, lazy, just like this, the sun glinting off Steve's hair, skin against to skin, and nowhere in the world better to be.

He leaned down and pressed one brief kiss to the corner of Steve's mouth. “Hey,” he said, moving back just far enough to speak, nose brushing against Steve's cheek. At the same time he rolled his hips into Steve's, pressing him a little downward into the mattress.

“Hey yourself.” Steve's hands stroked up and down his back, but there was a certain surprising timidity either in his voice or his actions that made a question occur to Bucky.

“You told me before,” Bucky said, the memory making his cock twitch a little against Steve's hip. “That you'd never given a guy a blowjob before, or fucked a guy before. Have you done..other stuff?” If Steve was inviting him to take his virginity, he wasn't going to back down, but he wanted to know.

“With my girlfriend, in high school, a few times,” Steve told him, cheeks pinking up. This time Bucky got to brush his lips against Steve's blush the way he'd wanted to every time. “I don't think either of us was really ready,” Steve admitted. Then his eyes flashed with the familiar challenge Bucky had seen before. “Don't think that means I can't blow your mind, though.” 

Being reminded of Steve's tormenting him, whispering dirty things in his ear every day and daring Bucky to touch, ignited a fire in his belly and suddenly he realized he had the perfect opportunity for revenge right in front of him. “You can try. If you still have the energy after I'm done with you,” Bucky told him, grinning down at Steve's face, inches from his.

He gave Steve's mouth one last, deep kiss, then started making his way downward. “Oh god,” Steve exclaimed, as Bucky's hand cupped his cock through his pants and gently squeezed.

Pulling back far enough to get Steve's underwear and pants off, he took a long look. His eyes traveled greedily, taking in every detail, from Steve's farmer's-tan arms to his small pale nipples, to his not-at-all-small reddened cock resting curved upward against his belly.

“Gorgeous,” Bucky remarked, and Steve turned his head away, smiling.

He got his hand on Steve's cock and gave it a few strokes, watching in fascination as one of Steve's legs twitched and his mouth fell open in an involuntary moan. Then Bucky leaned down and put a kiss right on the head of Steve's cock.

“Jesus,” Steve swore, long and drawn out. Bucky laughed a little, then took the head of Steve's cock in his mouth and started to suck. He'd always liked the feeling of sucking cock, having it fill up his mouth, tasting it on his tongue. But doing it to Steve, who let out a string of profanity and scrabbled for a grip on the bed when Bucky took him deep inside and hummed, was a whole other level of satisfying.

Bucky settled in to give the longest, most teasing blowjob he possibly could. Every time Steve seemed to be getting close, he would pull off, giving a few small licks at the head of Steve's cock, or stopping entirely.

“You doing okay, big guy?” Bucky asked, chin resting serenely on Steve's hipbone, face a few inches from Steve's red cock, shiny with spit and leaking.

“Fuck,” was Steve's heartfelt response, clenching his fists in frustration.

By the end, his jaw was sore and several strands of hair had been lost to Steve's gripping hands. But it was more than worth it when he took in the sight of Steve, lying on the sheets post-orgasm, looking absolutely wrecked. His head was tiled back, eyes closed and mouth red and open. His chest still heaved slightly. He was covered in a sheen of sweat and face, neck, and chest all the way past his nipples was red.

“What was that about blowing my mind?” Bucky asked, smug. From somewhere, Steve summoned the energy to groan and vaguely swat at him.

Bucky had to eat his words ten minutes later, when a recovered Steve yanked open his button fly and went to town on him.

“You never did that before?” Bucky asked, disbelieving, in the aftermath.

“I read a how-to article on the internet,” Steve told him, licking a little dribble of come from the corner of this mouth.

“Oh my god.” Bucky threw his hands over his face for a moment to process.

They declared a dinner break, and decided to order pizza in celebration of the successful end of a semester, as well as the fact that neither of them wanted to leave the apartment. Steve perused Bucky's books and his scanty vinyl collection, and they talked about normal things as they lounged around in their underwear, eating and drinking beers.

“I can't believe you wore eye makeup to try and seduce me,” Bucky said at one point, after Steve had made reference to his earlier flirtation attempts.

“I looked good in it, I thought,” Steve declared with perfect comfort.

“No argument here. But you looked good without it, too, if I remember. You didn't have any on that day you almost made me come in my pants in the study room.”

“When I told you I wanted to fuck you?” Steve asked with a gleam in his eye.

“Yeah, what happened to that, by the way?” Bucky teased, knowing exactly where this was going and feeling a stirring of excitement deep in his stomach. “That offer still on the table?”

In no time, they were naked again, and Steve was kneeling with one leg on either side of Bucky, who lay face down on the bed.

“Is it how you pictured?” Bucky asked, looking back over his shoulder and grinning.

Steve, eyes roving over every exposed inch of Bucky's back and ass, replied, “Better than. I definitely want to draw this.”

“Oh, okay,” Bucky said, making as if to get up. “I'll just go find a place to pose, shall I?”

Steve put one hand on his lower back and shoved him back down onto the bed. “Later,” he admonished, then swatted gently at Bucky's ass.

Bucky felt Steve's hands running down his back, He liked any version of having Steve's hands on him, but under all his focused attention and steady touch, he just wanted to curl up like a cat and let Steve pet him all day.

Steve's hands traveled down to meat of his ass then, warm on his cheeks, parting him. He heard Steve make an appreciative sound that went to Bucky's gut. Then he felt the press of a dry finger right against his the sensitive skin of his hole.

A sudden memory jolted to the front of Bucky's mind. “Whoa, wait!” Bucky exclaimed, wrenching his hips around and turning half on his side to face Steve. “Not without lube, jeeze.”

“I wasn't,” Steve looked mortified. “Sorry, Bucky. I wasn't going to put it in dry. I promise, I just wanted to touch.”

“Okay,” Bucky relented. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Okay. Just warn a guy, okay?” 

“Sorry,” Steve said, stroking one hand down Bucky's arm, and leaning over to press a kiss against his shoulder. 

“Didn't mean to freak out.” He cleared his throat. He knew Steve would never hurt him on purpose, but they were still learning to be careful with each other. “It's just, I told you I tried this one other time, right? It went pretty badly and hurt kind of a lot. Uh, I guess I'm jumpier than I thought I'd be.”

Steve didn't say anything, just continued his gentle stroking of Bucky's arm, and his steady, compassionate look.

Bucky let a moment pass as they breathed together. “Try again?” he asked, with a little smile.

“Okay,” Steve told him, happy look returning. “Um, do you have any lube?”

Bucky laughed and got it for him.

“Did you read an article on this, too?” Bucky got on his stomach again and spread his legs. It was vulnerable, but he _wanted_ to be vulnerable with Steve. He just had to convince his body of that.

“Several, actually,” Steve admitted. Bucky heard the cap of the lube flick. “I'm going to put one in you, okay?”

“Okay.” A jolt ran up his spine as the first inch of Steve's finger pushed inside him a moment. It didn't hurt, and Bucky felt himself start to relax slightly. In fact, it felt great.

“Good?” Steve asked.

When Bucky gasped an affirmative, “yeah,” he gently increasing the intrusion, pushing further inside.

“I can't believe you did--” Bucky paused to moan, as Steve's finger left him, then two fingers started pressing against his hole. “That you did _anal sex_ homework.”

“Wanted to impress the teacher,” Steve teased, leaning over to kiss Bucky's shoulder as he went even deeper inside. Every nerve in the lower half of Bucky's body was focused on the feeling of those two fingers pressing against him, filling him gently up. It was a strange sensation, intimate and almost unsettling. It made him feel like Steve had a direct line to every nerve in his body, and could do anything to him with just a tiny twitch of movement.

Perhaps in retaliation for earlier, Steve took his sweet time working up to it. Bucky couldn't see anything from where he was, face down in the pillows. He had almost no sound to go on, except the filthy wet sounds of the lube, and Steve's occasional encouraging murmurs. Everything was focused on the sensations of being fucked on Steve's long artist fingers.

Finally, when Bucky had about two functioning brain cells left, the rest having whited out completely, Steve's patience ran out.

“Bucky?” he asked, withdrawing his fingers completely.

“Mmmyeah?” Bucky shuddered, not liking the empty feeling.

“Can I? Are you ready?”

Putting aside one last twinge of hesitation, Bucky only said, “ _please_ .”

He heard Steve suck in a breath and saw him reach for the nightstand.

“Let me,” Bucky said. He grabbed a condom and rolled over. He gave Steve's cock a few strokes, acutely aware that he was just seconds away from having it inside him, like he'd been imagining for months. He rolled the condom on and turned over, getting on his hands and knees.

“You don't want to do it face to face?” Steve asked, even as he shuffled forward on his knees to get into position.

For a moment, Bucky's lust-addled brain tried to work through the logistics of whether it would be better. He shook his head, giving up. “Not this time.” Bucky's throat was still raw from the extended blowjob earlier, and his desperation was adding to it make his voice a rasp. “Now, you've made me wait long enough, will you please _fuck_ me already?”

He felt a pressure against his hole as Steve pressed the blunt head of his cock against him. “Tell me if you want to stop, okay?” was Steve's last warning, before he slowly pushed inside.

It was dizzying, an overwhelming sensation. Bucky felt full up the brim, overwhelmed as each single inch of Steve sank into him. He made a noise, he wasn't sure what.

“This is it,” Steve told him. “This is what I've been thinking about since I met you. God, it's perfect. You're perfect.”

He began to move, and sounds poured out of Bucky's mouth as each thrust lit him up from the inside with pleasure. It was nothing, nothing at all like the other time he'd tried this, that he'd been so afraid of repeating. This was like having Steve melt into him, and surround him, and infuse every inch of them both with pleasure.

In an embarrassingly short time, Bucky was on the edge of orgasm. He might have been able to come just from the feeling of Steve's cock pressing inside of him so perfectly, over and over, but he couldn't wait. He grabbed his own cock and pumped a few times and that was it, the world went white.

Bucky managed to stay on his hands and knees as Steve's thrusts sped up and shallowed out. Just a minute behind him, Steve cried out his own climax, hips stuttering unevenly against Bucky in his final thrusts.

He let himself fall forward then, Steve's cock slipping uncomfortably from his body as he slumped into the pillows. Steve flopped down next to him, looking stunned. In a surprising show of energy, Steve managed to put one hand out and stroke it gently through Bucky's hair. Bucky let them rest there, waiting for his body to calm, the last lingering sensations still sparking through him.

“Up,” he said at last, feeling slightly more conscious. “We're sticky.” Steve grunted in reply. They make a dazed trip to the bathroom to clean up, then, without further discussion, slid their underwear on and got back into bed, avoiding the wet spot.

Bucky curled around Steve, kind of surprised that he didn't put up a protest about being the little spoon, and nuzzled the back of his neck gently.

He thought of the melancholy he'd gone through the past month, and all the tension and worry of the weeks before that, of the stress of trying to deal with the feelings Steve had stirred in him from the beginning.

“Worth it,” he breathed quietly into Steve's hair, and dropped into sleep.

 


	14. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting the final chapter, 13, and this at the same time, so don't miss that last one.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who read, subscribed, kudo'd, and commented!!! You are all the BEST. I was actually really worried about posting something as WIP, because I was scared I would fuck it up or lose interest in the middle. You all helped keep me going. ♥ ♥

“You snore,” were the words, in Steve's unfairly attractive scratchy morning voice, that woke Bucky.

“Well,” he retorted blearily, cracking one eye open, “you kick in your sleep.”

Steve rolled so they were facing each other, lying on their sides. Suddenly, he snorted with laughter.

“What?” Bucky asked.

“Your bedhead's pretty bad.”

Bucky indignantly reached up to try and smooth his hair, but judging by Steve's worsening laughter, he had not improved the situation. “Well, yours isn't exactly artfully touseled.” He couldn't help but laugh along, some combination of the novelty of the situation, seeing Steve helplessly cracking up, and Steve's infectious and undignified giggle.

“What do we do now?” Bucky asked, when their laughter subsided. It had been a while since he'd been in this delicate place of being in a new relationship. And judging by what Steve had said of himself, he didn't have a wealth of experience to draw on, either.

“I have to go home in two days for winter break,” Steve admitted ruefully. “I don't come back until after the new year.”

“Oh,” right, of course he did. Bucky contemplated going a month without this, now that he had just gotten to have it. “Well, we can handle that.”

“Yeah?” Steve asked.

“Oh, yeah. I'm thinking phone sex will be a major component.”

Steve snorted a laugh. “And these two days?”

“I don't see any reason to get out of this bed, do you?” Bucky asked, smiling and waggling his eyebrows.

“Nope,” Steve told him, sliding a hand up Bucky's thigh and leaning in for a kiss that was only slightly marred by morning breath.

Just as the kiss was getting interesting, they heard a pounding on the front door.

Steve groaned and dropped his head against Bucky's chest. Bucky closed his eyes and prayed for patience. Why did he have a bad feeling he knew who exactly this was going to be.

“James!” Natasha's voice came, muffled through two doors but still recognizable. “Get up, you're coming to breakfast with me."

“Again?” Steve whispered, looking half-annoyed, half-impressed.

“She has the worst timing," Bucky whispered back. “Maybe she'll go away if we pretend we're not here.”

Then Natasha's voice rang again from beyond the door. “Get your cute butt out here! I want waffles. And bring Rogers with you.”

Bucky and Steve stared at each other.

“How did she--” Steve began.

“Don't ask. I've learned never ask how Nat knows these things,” Bucky told him. Natasha started up an idle rhythm of tapping against the front door, which he knew meant they better hurry up. “Well,” he asked Steve, grinning in spite of himself, “feel like going to breakfast?”

Steve leaned in and kissed him on the cheek and said, “With you? I'd go anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few tidbits that didn't make it into the story:
> 
>   * Steve's highschool girlfriend was Sharon. They were ADORABLE together. But yeah, not so much with the being ready for a sexual relationship. 
>   * In case anyone was worried, no, Bucky's previous boyfriend didn't assault him, he was just bad at sex and inconsiderate. Don't worry, Bucky wised up and dumped him. 
>   * Sam was going through some major drama with his for-the-last-time-Steve-he's-JUST-a-friend best friend Riley, which probably led him to being harsher about Steve and Bucky's situation than he otherwise would have. 
>   * The professor Nat works for is Eric Lensherr, because having Magneto as a physics professor is hilarious on so many levels. 
> 

> 
> Thanks to all of you for coming along on this ride! If you liked this, and want to see my flail incomprehensibly into future endeavors, you can go to [my author page](http://archiveofourown.org/users/JeannetteRankin) and subscribe, or [follow me on tumblr](http://jeannetterankin.tumblr.com/). Lastly, I'm actually going out of town for a little while, so your comments may not get replied to right away, but they will be cherished, I promise.


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